Upgrading my Graphics Card

[buhney]

Hello, I'm kinda new to this but I want to upgrade my single ATI Radeon HD 5870 card to a better card. I was thinking of upgrading to a single Radeon 7970, but I'm not sure if my old system is gonna be able to handle it.

I have an old dell xps 9000/435t - http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/dell-studio-xps-9000/4507-3118_7-33743813.html. Everything's the same except for:

Case: Antec Nine Hundred Two Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
PSU: CORSAIR TX Series CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified
RAM: Upgrade from 6GB to 8 GB DDR3 SDRAM
CPU FAN: COOLER MASTER V8 RR-UV8-XBU1-GP 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler
Misc: 1 extra 120mm Fan for the side of the case, which totals the case's fan to 3 120mm intake fans, 1 rear 120m out-take, and 1 top 200m out-take.

I did a lil' bit of tweaking for the case to be able to fit in the 5870 card. Other than that, nothing fancy.


Any opinions and suggestions are welcome.

 

[Davil]

It should work just fine and be a pretty decent upgrade. It is a PCI Express 3.0 card but it should still work fine in a PCI Express 2.0 slot and there isn't any actual performance loss from that currently as they're both still x16.

 

[Liberatas]

Hi there Buhney.

In short, an answer to your question yes your system will be able to take it. As mentioned above it will work perfectly fine as PCI-E is backwards compatible, so the fact you're using a PCI Express 3.0 card won't matter on a 2.0 motherboard. The TDP of the 7970 is 60Watts more under load so be aware of where your PSU is at? It's not a big increase but keep that in mind.

If I can make a recommendation, I would highly suggest getting an nVidia GeForce GTX 770 ASUS DCUII 2gb over the HD 7970. If you shop around you can find it at the same price as the HD 7970 and it is a better GPU overall in performance. Only reason not to choose nVidia's 770 is if you're a die hard AMD fan, or you're really counting on Battlefield optimisation. But nVidia Experience just brought out a new drive which increases performance of all 700 series GPU's in BF4 by 12% on average so, it's really quite a nice card.

Hope this helps.

 

[buhney]

Hi there Buhney.

In short, an answer to your question yes your system will be able to take it. As mentioned above it will work perfectly fine as PCI-E is backwards compatible, so the fact you're using a PCI Express 3.0 card won't matter on a 2.0 motherboard. The TDP of the 7970 is 60Watts more under load so be aware of where your PSU is at? It's not a big increase but keep that in mind.

If I can make a recommendation, I would highly suggest getting an nVidia GeForce GTX 770 ASUS DCUII 2gb over the HD 7970. If you shop around you can find it at the same price as the HD 7970 and it is a better GPU overall in performance. Only reason not to choose nVidia's 770 is if you're a die hard AMD fan, or you're really counting on Battlefield optimisation. But nVidia Experience just brought out a new drive which increases performance of all 700 series GPU's in BF4 by 12% on average so, it's really quite a nice card.

Hope this helps.

Hi Davil and Liberatas,

Thank you for the quick responses.

I'm sorry Liberatas, but I didn't really understand what you just said about the PSU.. haha. What did you mean by 60Watts more under load? Should I change my current PSU to a better and higher one? Also, I've been doing a bit of research and comparing Radeon 7970 and GTX 770. I'm not a die hard fan for neither brand, but I've heard good reviews on both ends.. A friend told me that if I upgrade my GPU, I might as well stick with Radeon, but I'm still undecided at the moment since I'm still comparing the two.

 

[kowashie]

Both cards are fantastic and will run every game at max at 50+ FPS and will work perfectly with your current setup..
it comes down to if you wanna spend
$349.99 for http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131567 ( 7970 )
or $379.99 for http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125462 ( gtx 770 )

 

[Liberatas]

Alright,

Under load means when you're putting your computer to heavy work like gaming on Ultra or doing video processing. 60Watts total power draw is small and you shouldn't need to upgrade your PSU so feel free to ignore my original comments on that.

Your friend has a good point, if you've started with something why not carry it on? The Radeon 7970 is a great card, no doubt about it. But the GTX 770 is proven to be better, when you choose to upgrade either one of them further you can choose to SLI/CF the graphics cards and again the GTX 770 in SLI is even better than the Radeon 7970.

The fact of the matter is, performance wise the nVidia GTX 770 has a higher base clock among other things. The 7970 may have more VRAM (Which is the 3gb) is only required if you plan on using multiple monitors. Two monitors with 2gb is more than enough.
If you want to know more on their statistics = http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-HD-7970-vs-GeForce-GTX-770

Long story short, Radeon 7970 will do it just fine. GTX 770 will do it better.

 

[buhney]

Thanks guys.

As for the GPU, I have decided to go with the GTX 770, and I will take Liberatas' suggestion on getting the GeForce GTX 770 ASUS DCUII 2gb. Does this GPU come pre-overclocked? And will it still work with my non-overclocked setup?

I don't plan on overclocking the GPU and my current setup, as I am an amateur with all that kind of things. But I'd be happy to have a better GPU, compared to what I have now, as I do play games moderately. And I'd like to play my games with the highest settings without worries.

 

[Liberatas]

It's similar to Intel Turbo-clocking. It's clocking of approx. 1ghz will fluctuate when it needs too, so clocking higher and lower when required to do so. Alternatively you can change that manually using GPU Boost 2.0 which comes with the graphics card. It will work perfectly fine with your setup!

All the best, good choice in card.
Game on!